A blog devoted to advancing the study of conscientious objection through the martial art of aikido.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Poland & Torture

Civilized countries do not maintain concentration camps or torture camps, so Nazi Germany claimed to be free of those. Their solution was to have such facilities in other countries. Of course inside nazi Germany there were plenty of abominable camps, usually transitory or special purpose, but those do not account in a nazi self-assessment. The real nasty places of WWII lore were in countries other than Germany, such as Poland.

The USA today maintains such places around the world and in Guatanamo, to maintain the fiction that no such places exist in USA, an echo of the nazi conceit. What is odd to day is countries that willingly cooperate with USA crimes. Whereas poland once claimed the concentration camps, the torture that occurred in their country was while under occupation, what explanation do they have today?

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday found “beyond reasonable doubt” that two current prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were transferred from Thailand to Poland by the CIA and tortured there.

Now, the USA should hold truth commissions to come to an understanding how this came to pass. As to Poland, they may want to do the same, and discover why their lands are so amenable to visitors torturing visitors.